Students are more likely to remember a definition when they have struggled to figure it out, first.

The Activity

One of the major misconceptions students have about dinosaurs is that anything large and extinct is a dinosaur. I show them a series of pictures of extinct animals and ask them to decide if it is a dinosaur or not. Some are easy while others are more difficult. After they are "stumped" a few times, then I go on to show the features that characterize all dinosaurs.